Eon Fable
by ScytheRider
Summary: Eighteen Eevee kits learn to cope with change, and stop to wonder if they made the right decision. (Contains non-canon Eevee evolutions)
1. Prologue

**Prologue**

Once upon a time, there was a tiny brown fox in a great big forest.

The little fox opened its eyes for the first time, and saw that the world was filled with colors. Golden rays of sunlight streamed down through the gentle green leaves in the treetops. A clear, sparkling river rushed between its dark, brown banks. Rows of great rocks lazed around upon the forest floor, proud and tall, sunbathing in the early afternoon air. Their skins were covered in marvelous swirls of gray and white.

The young fox then noticed its mother, an enormous silver-furred beast who curled around her new son, caressing the matted tufts of his fur with her gentle tongue. He looked up and saw her loving eyes and her proud smile, and emitted a croon, as though to call out to her. Humming a soothing melody, she held the youngling closer to her chest, letting it nestle in the darkness and safety of her fur, where it could hide from all the loud, overwhelming colors of the world. Having made its first discovery, the discovery that the world existed, the little one fell into a deep sleep, not to awaken until it would later discover the existence of hunger.

I was there as well, my heart filling with joy as I witnessed my son's first moments of awareness. I shared a knowing smile with my mate. Because, you see, there was something we knew that the little one did not. Though I suppose that is to be expected, seeing that a baby is not born with any more knowledge besides its basic instincts… but still, I smiled. Because I knew that the little one had taken its first step, however small and insignificant it seemed, on a journey that would lead to so many more discoveries…

…And one day, the little one would discover his own special power. His gift. The blessing that was his birthright.

He would discover that the whole wide world, the world beyond the forest, above the clouds, underneath the earth, under the ocean, and as far and wide as it stretched... it was all open to him.

He would learn that he was different from other creatures. He would realize that his friends, enemies, and acquaintances did not share his power. They were not free. They did not have this blessing, this gift, that life had endowed him with. Indeed, they would all have their own powers, but they were enslaved to them, ushered through life on a fixed road which rarely branched. Some would look upon the ocean tides and know they would never have the chance to witness the spacious beauties which might lie beneath. Others would gaze wistfully at the sky, wishing to join the birds in soaring from the treetops to the mountaintops to the desolate islands… but knowing that it was not their fate to do so, because they were who they were, and could be nothing more.

But my son… he could be _anything_.

If he desired to soar the skies with the birds, he could.

If he desired to slice through the ocean's currents on the wicked fins of a fish, he could.

If he desired to tunnel underground and dwell in the deep, murky hallows of the earth, to walk amidst the raging flames unharmed, or to snuggle beneath the taiga's snow like a warm comforter as the bitter and cruel winds of the north sang him a calming lullaby, he could.

It would be his choice. When the time would come, he would choose.

Such a beautiful choice, it would be.

He only needed to walk the earth and find that place which called to him, that place which he felt he truly belonged.

The little fox lived with us, learning the things that every little fox should learn: how to scamper about the forest, but not too far; how to spot berry-bushes and stay away from poison-ivy; how to run and hide from the vicious hounds or duck under the shade when the raptors would fly past.

The little fox was quick to make friends, learn about the world from the elders, and soon was spending most of his daylight hours away from the company of my mate and I. We did, of course, insist he find his way back to us before the stone's shadow would touch the riverbank each night. And like a good little boy, he did, and we kept him safe from the creatures of the night in our hidden little den beneath the stone.

One particular evening, an evening I will never forget, the little fox came back to us just as night was falling. As the warm and vivid colors of the sunset shined down into the entrance, the little one crawled in.

It was in that moment, I first realized, that our little one was no longer a little one.

The fox that returned to us that night was handsome and cunning, strong and swift. His voice was deep, his legs were long, his tail flowing and majestic. When I saw him, standing in the sun-drenched foyer to our den, I wondered if I had been hallucinating for twelve years; surely, he had always been small and adorable, with that tiny crooning voice which had called to his mother on the first day of his life? Surely, each step was as a rabbit's leap on his tiny little paws, not the sturdy stride of a grown hound? Surely… he was still small enough that my mate could hold him between her front legs and give him a full bath with just two strokes of her tongue?

I asked my mate if I had fallen asleep, and let pass the majority of my son's childhood life, never noticing the ways he changed. To me, he was always my little kit. I had lived my life as though he had been born yesterday, never noticing the inches he grew, the knowledge and wisdom he learned… Never noticing that I could now stare him straight in the eye, and see a knowing, intelligent gaze staring back into mine.

Our son had become a fully-grown vulpine. An adult.

And I realized…

He was ready to make the choice.

One day, when I had gotten my son's attention, I sat with him upon the rocks beside the riverbank, and I had asked him if he had given any thought to the choice he would need to make.

I meant, for the first time, to speak to my son as a friend and an equal rather than a parent, and show him that, like the wide world beyond the forest, my knowledge and wisdom was open to him if only he would ask for it. I meant for the discussion to be warm and lighthearted an exchange, a celebration of the possibilities set out before him. I meant not to pressure him, or to coerce him into any particular choice. I had no right to, after all, especially considering the choices that my mate and I had made. Merely, I desired to get to know my son a measure more than I had in all those years which had passed so quickly.

I looked at him, my precious son who had grown so fast and was still growing before my very eyes. When he turned to me, I wanted to see if I could spot that particular twinkle in his eye as he thought about soaring above the clouds, diving beneath the ocean's waves, or prowling down in the depths of the earth…

I wanted nothing more than for him to be happy. Surely, any mother or father could understand?

But my son turned his eyes away from mine. His gaze fell to the river, and all the joy and mirth in his face turned cold and heavy-hearted. He did not speak to me.

I tried to reassure him, to tell him that I loved him and that I did not mean to force him into any choice. I tried to tell him that his life was his own to live, his choices were his own to make, and that he would have my support regardless of what changes may happen. I was only his guide, after all; I had already found my place in the world. My place in the world, now, was to help him find his.

But my son would have none of it. His forlorn expression was soon replaced with a flimsy mask of good humor, and he simply told me he did not know, laughing away his hesitance as though I had only been joking with him the whole time. He then told me he had obligations with the townspeople that day, politely thanked me for the talk, and left me.

I watched him bounding down our beaten path until he had disappeared into the woods. But still I watched the place I had last seen him, and I remained there for many hours after he had gone, wondering. Just wondering about many, many things. Wondering if I had been a good father to him. Wondering, also, if I had made the correct choice so many years ago when I was in my son's position.

I remained there until my mate came looking for me, ready to retire to the den for the night. She asked me what was on my mind.

I told her the news. I told her that our son may have already made his decision. I told her my fear: that he might not have wanted to change at all. It seemed as though his mind was made up long before I confronted him; it seemed as though there was nowhere on earth which appealed to him. It seemed as though he wished to remain, forever, our little brown fox.

She leaped up onto the rock and placed her head upon my shoulder. I felt her touch, and it drained all of my worries away. Softly into my ear, she spoke words that I had already begun to feel in my heart:

"If that is what will make him happy, then that is his choice."

I knew it to be true. How could we judge our son's desire to remain the same? He knew he had the power to make any of the world's far reaches his home. But what of our forest, our den, our territory, and our humble village? Could this also be his home? Could it also be one of his options?

Of course it was. After all, it was the place I had fallen in love with, the little corner of the earth I had chosen to dwell within. What right did I have to deny my son the one place on Earth I had deemed perfect for myself?

Though he was somewhere far away, I found that I had come to terms with my son after all. Without difficulty or hesitance, I came to respect his decision. And when he returned home to the den that night, I did not speak of our conversation, I did not apologize, and I did not make further attempts to broach the topic. Instead, I told him again that I loved him. It was all I felt I needed to say.

From that day on, though, I noticed a change in my son's behavior. The flimsy mask of good humor he wore when talking to me that day never seemed to come off. Though he rarely spent his daytime hours around the den anymore, I took whatever opportunities I could to share his company, to laugh at his fortunes and commiserate with his mistakes, and to show him whatever remaining wisdoms he asked to be taught. But through it all, his heart was closed to me. His words were awkward and restrained. The genuine honesty in his voice, the last relic of his long-past childhood, had finally left him. Instead, he appeared to be humoring me, acting happy to see me whenever we would meet. I knew there were others in the world he was honest to now, others in the world I might someday get the chance to meet, but he was clearly finished being honest with his parents.

That, too, was his choice. A choice I knew I had to respect.

Then, one night, when the shadow of the largest rock touched the riverbank, my son did not return to the den.

Worry struck my heart like the venom of a viper, insidiously working through my bloodstream, making my legs tremble and my breath short. Never, not once in his life, had my son failed to return to the den before nightfall. Surely, a raptor had struck him from the side, or he had stepped in a ditch and broken his ankle!

But my mate's words, like the cleansing antidote, cut through my unease:

"He is gone. He has spoken to me; he has found a mate of his own, and they have moved to a new home."

At once, I trembled and let out a yowl like a youngling; a convulsion tore through my form, something like a joyous laugh and a cry of lament all at once. Though I missed him, and could not at the moment fathom why he had chosen not to tell me farewell, my heart overflowed with pride and I collapsed into the loving embrace of my beautiful mate. I hoped that the wisdom and skill I had imparted to him over the years would be sufficient, and if not, I hoped the temperament of the wild or the wisdom of the townsfolk could fill in whatever I had missed. For better or worse, we had raised him, and he was gone. Our task was complete. Our little fox had taken the next step on his grand journey to discovery.

For a time, my mate and I were lonely. Together, we traveled the countryside for a few months, exploring the wilderness and enjoying the hospitality of the neighboring villages. It was relaxing to once again see all the colors of the world and to meet the other kinds of creatures we had forgotten existed, but our hearts were not focused on our travels. Chief among our thoughts was the prospect of having another child.

On one paw, raising our son was the most wondrous experience of my life, teaching me more about life and about myself than I felt twelve of the elders could impart upon me in the same span of time. My heart fluttered wistfully at the idea of beginning again with a new little kit, or two, or three. Now that I had enough experience to know what I was doing, I felt that I could put into practice all the things I had learned, and perhaps become a better father to our new children than I had to our first.

But on the other paw, there were some realities that we could not deny. For instance, my beautiful mate, though still as gorgeous and keen as the day I had first met her, was losing the sheen in her silver fur, and several wrinkles had begun to form upon her muzzle. And I had issues of my own; my fur was beginning to shed, sometimes in clumps, and my step did not have the spring and vigor it once had in the days I could cross the full span of the woods and back in less than a day. We slept longer during the night, and our enthused sprint was all too often substituted with a complacent stride.

Truth be told, we wondered how much longer it would be until we would make our final discovery: that of the spirit world. And even if we would survive long enough to see off our new litter of children, did we have enough spark left within us to keep up with them, to walk with them to and from the village, and to collect them when they would run off and get lost?

These questions distracted us as we traveled. We climbed mountains, never noticing the majestic, billowing formations of the clouds in the sky. We crossed prairies, never stopping to appreciate the golden stalks of grass which surrounded us as they bent in rhythm to the winds. We followed the seaside for hours, never caring how the waves sparked, or how the sun turned red and purple as it sank deep down into the depths.

It was I who realized the answer. It happened one day as we were tracing the sandy beach of the sea; I looked across the water and saw the sparkling tides glinting in the red-and-purple sun. And I stopped her and stared into her eyes. I showed her the ocean, and I commented on how gorgeous it was. I told her that I almost didn't notice it, because her own beauty had distracted me, the way it did every day of my life.

Blushing, she giggled and reprimanded me for being so sappy, playfully slapping a pawful of sand into my face.

I laughed along with her.

And when I was done laughing, I opened my mouth to tell her.

But… the words would not rise from my throat.

My legs locked, my heart heaved…

I couldn't speak. I couldn't tell her that, no, we could not have another child. Not while the sun was setting on our own lives. Not while there was still so much of the world we needed to explore, so much we needed to learn, before we expired. It was absolutely the truth; it was the answer stamped undeniably onto my heart, the answer which would make both of us happier for the remainder of our lives.

But… my throat seemed to close, my tongue grew limp. Though I stared into her eyes, the eyes of my perfect, silvery-furred one… the truth locked itself in my chest, refusing to leave.

So, instead, I told her something else. I wore the mask I had learned from my son, the flimsy mask of good humor, and I told my dear mate that we would decide when we returned back to our home. I told her that we needed to enjoy this journey, to appreciate the sights, without letting the question bother us. I convinced her to put it out of our mind until we were once more dwelling in the homely comfort of our own den, where we could ease our minds and make the final decision.

Even though, in my heart, the decision was already made. I just needed so much more time to accept it.

With the time I had purchased through my weakness, I enjoyed our journey, though perhaps not as much as I should have; each time she looked at me, I wore that mask, hiding my weakness. Hiding my shame. And I trembled at the thought of making the decision for the final time.

Well, after three wonderful months of visiting the world and letting its colors stir our hearts, we set our course back to the forest with the den beneath the big stone. The place I had picked as the most perfect place in the world to live with the most perfect mate in the world. The place which would always be home.

And I wondered, as we walked back, if I was ready to remove the mask and tell her how I felt. As the day drew nearer, I struggled with myself, gaining acceptance over the throes of regret I felt deep inside.

We found the den just as we had left it, all of our belongings having only accumulated a thin layer of dust in our absence. As the night fell, we entered into the deepest chamber and settled down together. I turned to my mate and I told her again that I loved her. It was all I felt I needed to say.

But then, even before the morning sun was able to rise, everything changed.

There was a disturbance outside of our den that morning. I dashed out of my room to confront the visitor, and found that a large brown raptor had come calling upon my residence.

The bird was civilized; it spoke to me, explaining to me that it was a messenger, sent by an unnamed client to give me an urgent notice. Apparently, there was a dire problem somewhere, and the client had specifically requested my presence as soon as I could come.

Immediately, my heart jumped into my throat; there was only one other creature in the whole wide world who knew the directions to this den. I knew who had sent the message.

The bird gave me directions to the destination: a hidden den, very similar to mine, on the other side of the forest. Once I had confirmed the information, it flew away.

Casting an uneasy glance back down into the darkness where I had come from, the darkness where my mate still rested, I bared my teeth against the decision and chose to see if I could still dash the full length of the forest and back in less than a day.

And I ran after my son.

I thought I had aged. I thought the weariness would pounce from the shadows and trip me up before even noon would pass. But that day, as I sprinted so feverously to the aid of my son, lightning filled my legs and lent its unending power to me. Perhaps it was pure adrenaline, or perhaps I was not as old as I had imagined, but the distance was simply no match for the yearning I had to see my son again, to see if he was happy, and to help him though whatever problem he had.

Midway through the day, I felt the beginnings of the dreadful cramps, but I breathed deeply and ignored them, pushing my weariness out of my mind. The forest continued to blur past me as a leaped over its trenches, rivers, and fallen logs, just as I had done in my childhood predatory days when chasing after the stray squirrel or rabbit.

As the sun began its descent across the western half of the sky, my chest was burning and my gasps for air had become grunts of pain. My legs were slowing and becoming clumsy, but I never stopped; the bird had said I was needed as soon as I could come, and so that's when I would be there.

After eleven hours of sprinting like a cheetah through the forest I called home, I arrived to the destination. It was a homely little den, opening between the gnarled roots of an old tree. At first glance, I was deeply impressed; it held some suspicious similarities to my own, such as the nearby river, the fish-catching net, the grinding stones… surely my son had taken some of my wisdom with him. I tried to give a chuckle of pride to no one in particular, but only a wheezing gasp left my throat.

I positioned myself at the entrance and called in, announcing my arrival.

A raspy female's voice replied, asking me to enter.

Without hesitating, I imposed myself upon my son's hospitality, crawling into his new home to admire his handiwork. I wondered how many rooms it would have, how many furnishings, and especially how many children he had taken upon himself to raise. But I saw none of these things, for there was not enough light; only a single glow-stone sat in the center of the room, casting dull shades of turquoise upon the walls.

Sitting beside the glowstone was a remarkable young lady; a night-fox, the kind with fur dark as ink and lustrous yellow rings upon her form to capture and emit moonlight. Her red eyes glowed with fiery strength and boldness. Truly, I imagined, a respectable mate for my son. I bowed to her, circling around the glow-stone to approach her.

As I did so, I noticed that the elegant form of the night-fox was marred; her two left limbs were missing.

In place of her limbs, there was only a pink, scratchy mess of scabs and gore. And though she did not bleed, I could tell the wounds were fresh. The stench of bloodstain was strong upon this crippled, unfortunate one.

Forgetting any pretense of formality, I demanded to know what had happened to her.

She lifted her head to me, a shadowy glaze upon her eyes. She told me, frankly, that she had been injured trying to save my son.

Dread came upon me, the darkness of the den filling my soul. I asked, in a solemn, steady voice, what had happened to my son.

She explained that my son had been killed.

She explained how, two days ago, they were exploring the prairie. She explained how they figured it was a place safe for hunting and playing. She explained how the pack of dark hounds had risen from an unseen cave, ambushing them. How he lacked the strength to defend himself, because he had never made the choice. He had never evolved.

She explained that she was able to kill three of the hounds and chase the rest away, losing one leg and fracturing the other in the process. How she used the last of her strength to carry him back to the den and spend her final moments with him, and how he bled to death the next day. How she respectfully buried him behind the tree before removing the rest of her twisted, infected limb by her own means.

She spoke with a steely soul to her voice, as though she was merely stating the truth and nothing more. She spoke as though she had long since run dry of tears to shed.

I staggered, the weariness of the day's run catching up to me at last. I collapsed onto the ground beside the glow-stone, ramming my head into the hardened clay floor. I did not feel the ensuing headache. The only ache I felt came from my chest.

My tears soon formed a pool upon the floor.

I asked her why she sent a messenger for me. I asked if it was only to tell me news of his passing.

She replied, "He wanted me to tell you something. He said there was something he never got to tell you, and he wanted you to know."

"He said you had him wrong… you thought that he never wanted to change. But that was never true. He wanted more than anything to find a place in the world, and to evolve…"

"But the choice was destroying him. He said he was overwhelmed by the choices, and he could never decide which choice was right for him. He said that he couldn't bear the thought of evolving and having all of the other possibilities taken away from him. He said it hurt every time he thought about it. And he said, that's why he didn't answer you when you asked. Because he already realized he would never be happy. No matter how he would evolve, he would never be happy."

I dug my fangs into the floor, lamenting my failure as a father. It was finally now, now that I had lost him, that I finally understood him.

At last, although he was truly gone, and the spirit world had claimed him… I understood why he had worn that mask to me, why he would hesitate to discuss his life's greatest decision.

In the end, he had made a choice; it was a choice born of shame, of confusion and uncertainty. It was the choice of indecision, the only choice which was truly bad. It was a choice which, truly, had destroyed him.

It was a choice I could have _prevented! _I could have _helped! _If _only_ I had known…

"There was another reason he wanted me to call you," the broken one told me, her somber voice still betraying no great emotion.

I raised my head from the floor, trying to steel myself against reality, just as the broken one had done. I stared into her bright, crimson eyes, trying to muster the strength and resolution necessary to listen to her.

She nodded her head. After a few moments had passed, I realized she had been motioning towards something, something in the shadowy corner of the den. I gazed into those shadows, squinting to make out the shapes which sat just beyond the reach of the dull phosphorescent light.

They were eggs.

"He said you would know what to do with them," she spoke plainly. "He said to call you."

Holding my breath, I clambered to my feet and dashed to the far wall of the den, where several eggs – no, more than a _dozen_ – were lined neatly across a crook in the floor.

Awe filled my heart, and a gasp escaped my lungs. I knew these were her eggs. _His_ eggs. My…

…My grandchildren.

I understood what the broken one meant. She and my son had quite ambitious plans to raise a large family. But now that her legs had been taken, she could not hope to raise even one of them on her own.

My voice wobbled and broke, becoming a pathetic squeal as I attempted to count the eggs. It took many tries, as there were so many eggs, and I couldn't quite think straight… finally, I decided that I had found the correct number. Eighteen.

_Eighteen_ eggs. Eighteen little brown foxes who would soon emerge into the world for the first time.

I felt terrified. And honored. And outraged. And proud. I felt every emotion of the rainbow as I gazed upon those eggs, wondering just what would become of them. Wondering… just what I would do. My son, in his final moments, had trusted me with these eggs. Of course, given the circumstances, he didn't have so many options if he cared about the lives of his children… but still, I knew this was my son's final request of me. This was the last time he would ever ask for my wisdom and expertise to complement his own. I had dashed across the forest to help my son through a problem, and still now, I intended to do just that. I didn't know if I could raise them, but by the gods, I was going to grant my son's wish. I was going to do _something_.

I tried to converse with the broken one, to get to know her and to ask her if she had any plans. But she would have none of it. She insisted in the same stoic manner that I take the eggs, leave her alone, and forget that she existed. I offered her food, shelter, or anything I had in my power to give to her, but she lashed back at every offer, claiming that her sisters would soon arrive to aid her, and that she wanted to forget about my son as fast as she could.

I was in no position to do anything more than to honor her request. I found a large sack, gently bundled up the eggs into its girth, and like a beast of burden I secured them to my back. I rested for the night in silence, and in the early morning, I departed.

When I arrived back to my den the following evening, I collapsed upon our foyer from the weight, and I proceeded to tell my silver one the story of what had happened. I mourned with her for many days and many nights, wallowing in the tragedy of our loss until we, too, ran dry of our tears. After those days had passed and our inner strength had begun to return, our attention fell upon the dozen-and-a-half little eggs, all spotted in various shades of brown, which lined the wall of our innermost den.

In that moment, I knew I would keep them. I would hatch them and raise them all.

And I would do so with an idea in mind. It was an idea that had taken hold of me while I had remembered my son and the troubles he suffered. I reflected upon his mental struggle with evolving, the pain he must have felt whenever he considered taking one path and foregoing all the others, unable to reverse his decision. I iterated through his life, wondering how his feelings had affected the decisions he made.

In doing so, I had come to a decision of my own. I wanted to raise these children and show them the answer to the question, an answer I could have given my son so freely if ever he would have asked. An answer he must have realized too late, if it had ever crossed his mind during his final moments before his discovery of the spirit world.

I realized that my son would have wanted it this way. He would have wanted me to teach the children what he could not. His final words, after all, were that I would know what to do with the eggs. That's what he meant.

And so, though my mate and I were gaining more wrinkles and losing more fur as each year passed, we hatched those eggs, all eighteen of them. And soon, where there once was just a little fox waking up in a forest, there were many.

All those little foxes lived under our care, learning the things that every little fox should learn: how to scamper about the forest, but not too far; how to spot berry-bushes and stay away from poison-ivy; how to run and hide from the vicious hounds or duck under the shade when the raptors would fly past. But this time, I made certain something was different. This time, I watched them closely and carefully for those tiny tell-tale changes that I had somehow missed in my son. When their rabbit-hops became hound-strides, I took notice. When their voices grew deep and mature, taking on unique personalities, I took notice. When their legs grew long enough to leap across the rivers, their muscles and claws strong enough to climb trees, and their teeth sharp enough to carve wood, I took notice. Through each and every moment of my grandchildren's early lives, I watched them grow.

And when they were in my mate's care, I became a rock-collector in my spare time. I took it upon myself to fill the sack, the same sack that had come from my son's den, with exotic, colorful varieties of gemstones. I stole, I bartered, I purchased; I did whatever I could to fill that sack, so I would be ready when the proper time came.

It came so soon, even sooner, it seemed, than it had with my son. Though I had made sure to pay close attention to the passage of time, I will swear to the heavens that only a week passed before I realized I was no longer drowning in a swarm of kits, but an upright pack of bright young canines, all of them intelligent, well-developed, and just beginning to itch for a taste of the world which existed beyond the forest.

One night, my mate and I lit a campfire, and we invited all of our grandchildren to attend. It was the first night they were allowed outside of the den after the shadow of the stone had touched the riverbank, and most of them were giddy and excited at the prospect of breaking the rules for the first time, even though it had been done with our permission.

We laughed, we howled, we feasted on fire-roasted fish and rabbit, and when the feast was finished, I stood in front of the fire and I gave my announcement to them.

"There's a reason I have gathered you here tonight," I explained in my warbling old voice. "You might be wondering why I let you stay above ground after the stone's shadow has touched the riverbank; it is because this night is unlike any other night. Tonight… is the night you all will take a step in your journeys of discovery. See, there's something I want you to do for me."

I looked at them all, all of the boys and girls, their ears turned attentively to the sound of my voice, their eyes fixated on my silhouette upon the firelight.

"You are here tonight because you are going to write a story," I told them.

One of them, one of my clever little girls, spoke up. "But grandpapa, we're just foxes!" she retorted. "We can't write anything… we can barely hold the quill and the charcoal in our mouths. We can't write a whole story…"

I grinned. "You're not going to be writing the story with quills or charcoal," I answered her. "You will write the story… with your own lives. And the story begins as each of you travels somewhere very far, far away."

My grandchildren gasped in bewilderment. They had never expected that I would kick them out of the den so soon. And that was good, because I needed them to remember how they felt on this very night. I needed them to remember their shock and surprise. It had to be impressed upon their hearts as the beginning of their stories.

Before another word was spoken, I gathered the sack of rocks, the one I had so dutifully filled, and dumped its contents on the forest floor. I savored the howls of my awestricken grandchildren as they gazed upon the treasures. The stones were each and every color from the whole wide world; they were every color of the rainbow, the sunset, the flowers in the meadow. The firelight glinted from their surface like the sparkle of the sunset upon the ocean; tiny little rainbows were refracted upon the rocks and trees surrounding us.

"There are eighteen of these stones," I told the children. "Each of you may choose one, and only one. It doesn't matter how you pick them. You could choose the one that is your favorite color, or the one which has the design or shape you like the most. You can trade them, fight over them, whatever you wish. But by the end of tonight, I want each of you to choose one stone, and that stone will become yours for the rest of your life."

"Each stone is also a ticket to a faraway place," I continued to explain. "Fifteen days from now, I will take you into town, where I have several friends waiting. Depending on which stone you chose, you will be taken to a different place."

"What do we do, once we arrive?" one of my little boys, the eldest one, asked me.

"You will live there," I told him. "Or… you will leave, and find a different place to live. It is your decision for you to make when you arrive. But whatever the case, your home will no longer be here. You will need to find your new home for yourself. That… is where your story begins. So… use these final fifteen days to say your goodbyes, collect your belongings, and prepare for your journey of discovery."

"But why, grandpapa?" one of the children asked, the faces on the other children begging the same question. "Why are you making us leave? Why can't we stay? We like it here…"

I sighed heavily before answering, my old and grumbling voice growing tired from speaking for too long. "Because, little one, I honestly and truly believe, with all of my heart and with every fiber of my being… that… your father would have wanted this for you."

Already, the children were eyeing the pile of precious stones, wondering which one they would snatch up. Wondering what secrets each stone held. Wondering where they would be taken.

"There is one last thing, my young ones, that I want you to remember," I told to them. "Somewhere, up in the starry sky beyond the treetops, there is an object drifting in space named Amadeus's Comet. It passes by the earth only once per century, and when it passes, it is a beautiful sight to behold. It shines yellow, like the sun, and is nearly as bright. It will light up the sky for eight nights, after which it will disappear from sight for the next generation to behold. Truly, I have looked forward to witnessing this comet for all of my life. I would like it if you were to witness it with me."

"Let this mark the _ending_ of your story, my children… when Amadeus's Comet lights up the sky, I would like all of you come back from wherever you have traveled, no matter how far, and find a way against all odds return here… to the place where this very campfire burned tonight. In fact, I would like to meet all of you together, so before you return, wait in the village for all of your brothers and sisters to arrive. When all of you have arrived, or when the final night of the comet is coming to pass, whichever is sooner, then come and meet me here. And I will share your stories with you and tell you the meaning of what you have accomplished."

"Wait, when is this comet coming?" One little girl asked me. "We can't just drop everything on a moment's notice and come back home, Grandpapa. How will we know when it's coming?"

"You won't!" I told her wryly. "I'm not telling you when it's coming. I can only promise that you will get to see it in your lifetime, if your life does not come to a premature end, of course. You will just have to drop everything at a moment's notice and return once it appears. Keep an eye to the night sky; you will not mistake it for anything. It will be brighter than the full moon; it will glow through even the darkest storm clouds."

At that, I let the children scramble to select their stones, each choosing just one colored gem to have and hold as their own. As they bickered and bartered, I, an elderly old fox, leaned against my elderly mate, and dreamed of the eighteen tales my grandchildren would soon create, tales which would combine to form the grand story which my son had inspired.

It would not be a story for me. It wouldn't be for the children. It would not even be for all the little brown foxes of the world, stricken with a decision that was difficult to make.

It would be a story about _change_, and it would be dedicated to everyone, everywhere, who faced it, fighting against or succumbing to its rash and sudden winds. For when it comes, to what should you cling? Of what should you let go? And in the end, just how do you tell if you've made the right choices?

I do not know. Perhaps there exists no answer which holds true for everyone. But for now, heed the stories of my grandchildren and the conclusions they found. Dear listener, whomever you are, this story is dedicated to you.

ScytheRider Presents…

**Eon Fable**


	2. Water

Chapter of  
**- Water -**

So here I am, standing at the end of this great big cliff overlooking the ocean.

I never saw the ocean before. I heard it mentioned in some storybooks but I never got to see it with my own eyes until now.

I almost expected it to look like one of the ponds from the forest, you know, all still and smooth on top, except bigger. But it looked pretty rough to me, like a river. I thought that was weird, because I always thought rivers flowed downhill, but the ocean was just flat, so I didn't understand why it would be flowing anywhere. I heard somewhere that all the rivers and creeks in the world flowed into the ocean eventually, so I didn't get why the ocean was still flowing when the water had nowhere to go.

But there were waves all over the ocean like fish scales, and they were all coming towards the shore. It sounded like thunder when they hit the bottom of the cliff, and it looked kind of like a giant bonfire whenever the waves hit, sending lots of embers into the air. And it all smelled like salt. The smell got into my nose and my throat and wouldn't go away. It got into my eyes and it started making them water.

But it was pretty.

There was nothing as far as I could see. Just water and sky. Even the ocean was emptier than the sky was. The sky had lots of streaky clouds, and I saw the moon, too. I like how the moon comes out during the day sometimes. It's funny.

But the ocean was just plain. There wasn't anything there. Just water, and a weird reflection of the sun. And for some reason I thought that was pretty. Like if you went out there and got away from all of the Wing-gulls on a boat or something, it would be really peaceful and no one would bother you.

There was a water-monster standing next to me on the cliff. He said he was a Feral-gator. Big, blue spiky guy. He had a mouth that could probably eat me in one bite if he wanted to. But I wasn't scared of him. He was the one who took me to live with him in the city next to the ocean. He brought me here to show me the seaside because he thought it would make me happy.

He says, "So what was your name again?"

"It was Jasmine," I told him. I don't know why he forgot my name. I remembered his. His name was Brunt.

He says, "Jasmine. You know, I think you must be the fifteenth 'mon I've met in my life with that name. It's getting pretty old. Parents should really start trying to be more original with naming you kids."

Well, yeah. Like I can do anything about it. I say, "Well, There's eighteen of us and Grandpa named all of us after flowers. He said he wanted all of us to have names that were different colors."

He shrugs and he says, "Fair enough. I guess it could have been worse. He could have named you after gemstones…"

I didn't like Brunt just yet. He wasn't like Grandpa, and I didn't think he would make a good replacement for him. He was more like Clover. I never got along with Clover. But Brunt said he would pay me if I would help him with his job. I thought, if I could make a living here, I could figure out why Grandpa sent me here and figure out what kind of a story he wanted me to write.

I stared at the ocean for a long time, but I tried not to look straight down the cliff. I was scared of heights. Whenever I would look down, I thought I could feel the rocks starting to crack underneath me like a dead tree branch. The kind I broke when I tried to climb a tree the first time. But it went away again when I looked at the ocean and the way it turned into the sky far in the distance.

After a while more, Brunt says, "So, Jasmine, what do you know about the sea?"

I say, "...That it's big?" It was the only thing I could think of.

Brunt looks at me like I'm crazy. He laughs and he says "You're about to become a Vaporeon and you don't even know anything about the ocean?"

I look back at him and say, "What's a Vaporeon? A sailor like you?"

Honestly, it's silly, but I didn't know anything about evolving at the time. I know a few of my brothers and sisters figured out the secrets of Eons from the library or from the elders or the villagers, but I wasn't one of them. I never really liked reading and I didn't pay much attention to my tutoring when they talked about Eons. I thought they were completely different creatures. Many of my siblings were the same. They didn't know either. But our ignorance really came back to bite us. Or at least it did for me.

Nowadays I think maybe Grandpa didn't tell us on purpose. I think he wanted us to all find out about evolving on our own. It was part of the story.

So yeah, now Brunt's looking at me all flabbergasted. He yells at me, "If you've got no idea what a Vaporeon is, then what in Kyogre's wide realms are you doing with the Eon-stone?"

I remember the stone. I sit down on my tail and I paw with the gem on my chest. It was the blue stone that I had picked on the night of the campfire. Grandpa put it in a chain-link holder thing that harnessed around my neck and behind my front legs. It's so snug that I forgot it was even there most of the time.

I tell him, "Grandpa gave it to me. I picked it because I liked the color. I don't really know what it is; he just told me to keep it forever."

So Brunt tells me. He crouches down and touches the front of the gem with his claw. "This is your ticket into the depths of that great big ocean out there, my dear," he says. "It's an evolving stone. It has the power to permanently change the shape of your body into… something that swims. And swims blasted well, I might add. We 'mons all need to evolve sometime, or, most of us at least. But you 'eons take your evolving extra seriously, so your kind took the normal evolving stones and made these. They're crazy rare and they only work for 'eons. They're special because they don't work until you recite a chant of some sort, so you'll never evolve on accident."

I frowned at him, not understanding. "A chant? What is it?" I said.

He stared into the sky and started rolling his eyes to the side. "Oh, it's something like… Cheepo… Oh, I don't know. Really sorry, kid, but I'm no 'eon, I've only ever seen the phrase in writing. I'd have to look it up again sometime to refresh my memory."

I still didn't get it. There was a chant? Something I could sing to the stone that would change me?

Change me into something that could swim? I could already swim a little. At least I could paddle on the surface of the water in the ponds and rivers back home. I didn't know about the ocean, though. The ocean looked a little harder to swim across. I still didn't understand why I would be expected to swim into the ocean. Brunt sailed on a boat; couldn't I just ride on that?

That was the first time I realized that Grandpa wanted me to change. He wanted me to use the stone that would change my form into something else. Forever. I just kind of felt uneasy and I didn't know what to say. Actually I was pretty scared right then and there. I thought I could hear the stones cracking underneath me again, but it was only the waves down below.

I felt weak, and I shivered a little. I told Brunt, "I don't want to change."

He scoffs and he says, "You 'eons are all the same, you know. If you really don't want to change, I'll gladly take back that stone of yours. Just don't expect to see another one for as long as you live, right."

I couldn't do that. Grandpa told me to keep it.

Then he stands back up and he says, "Fortune has smiled upon you, my dear. And that fortune is the sea. You'd best start learning to do the best you can with what you've got. That's what life's all about, anyway."

I ask if we can leave. I don't want to look at the sea anymore. I'm starting to get sick.

So he takes me back to the town. It's called Port Craw. It's a big place. It's so much bigger than the village that was outside of my forest back home! There aren't any gardens or grass or trees anywhere I can see; it's just stone and wood and iron. The ground is made of a bunch of gray beady rocks, and so many of the houses are, too. And it's really busy; there are crowds of creatures running everywhere, all sorts of kinds I've never seen before. Many of them look like they're really out of their elements. Like they really should be living in a forest like the one I came from. I start wondering if they all like it here, or if they hate it. There's no nature anywhere. Well, except for the ocean. You can see the ocean from almost anywhere in town.

I look at the ocean one more time as I'm following him. The sun is setting over the ocean. It makes the ocean look even more pretty.

Brunt takes me to his home, which is a really small box made of wooden planks. He lets me in, and I see that it only has a few rooms. There are some rugs and benches and shelves, but our den had those too. I thought such a big monster would live in a bigger home, but I'm seeing it's really cramped in here. The floor creaks underneath him as he walks.

I begin to wonder where I'm supposed to go. I crawl over to a little rug made of ropes and I sit down. It's not very comfortable, but I don't want to touch anything in the house if Brunt doesn't want me to, so I stay put and watch him.

"It still smells like salt in here," I tell him. It was annoying. I thought the smell would go away when we went inside.

He walks around into a storage room and opens a freeze-box. It's full of dead fish. He takes one and sets it on a bench. He also pours some kind of colorful water into an open orb of glass.

He says, "Ahh, yes. Salt and seafood, seafood and salt. Stay around Port Craw long enough, and those will be the only two scents that will ever bring you comfort again. Because they mean you're home."

I didn't agree. The scents of my home were things I wouldn't forget. The honeysuckles in the spring, the loose pollen from the dried leaves in the fall that would make me sneeze, and the spicy pine-sap in the winter. _Those_ were the real scents of home to me. With this smell of salt and fish everywhere, I couldn't really smell anything else. And foxes are supposed to be known for their sense of smell, so that's really saying something.

But I don't say that, because I don't want to be rude.

He asks me if I want anything. I ask if he has any milk. He says "Sorry, but we generally don't keep milk around these parts. It's expensive and it goes bad too quickly. Not to mention, it doesn't go so well with fish."

He sets a bowl of water in front of me and asks me to try not to spill it on the rug. He asks if he should "skin a fish" for me, and I just sigh and say that I'm not hungry. I look into the little bowl and I realize I'm not really thirsty either, but I don't say that either because I don't want to be rude.

He says, "Well, you need to eat _something_ at least. I can't have you running out of steam when we go to work tomorrow."

I don't want to work. I just really don't. I don't know what he expects me to do. I'm just a little girl, I haven't done any harder work than cleaning up the forest patio when it was my turn to do it, or bringing stuff in from town for Grandpa. I really don't know how I can help this big monster with his boat.

He sits down at the bench and he looks at his dinner. Then he looks at me. I ask him what the work will be like.

He starts to use his claws to cut the scales off the dead fish. He says, "Well, I need a strong, young Vaporeon to help me make shipments across the ocean. You'd be in charge of shackling the anchors and helping move the supplies through the water. Of course, I could do it without a Vaporeon, but I'd rather not. It'd take twice-and-a-half longer."

I ask him why he couldn't just use something else as a partner.

He says, "Well, you're strong, you're fast, you're small, and you've got limbs. There aren't very many water-types with your credentials. Only thing better for the job is a Marshtomp, but they're even rarer, on account of you can never get one who doesn't want to evolve as soon as possible."

I gawk at Brunt as he starts picking off the fish meat from the bones and eating it raw. I've never had raw fish before. I've eaten some meat raw, but never fish. It just seemed gross. Grandpa and Granny always cooked the fish for us. We'd always catch some in the lake and they'd set it on some coals and brown it with some chives for flavor. It was also weird to see because he had such a big mouth but he was picking the meat off the bones like it was grapes. He could have eaten the whole fish at once with the jaws he has.

He keeps talking with his mouth full. He says, "Of course, I prefer Vaporeon for their other qualities. You have a certain affinity with water that you can't quite find among commonfolk. When you've got a Vaporeon with you, the sea just seems to do what you want in unexplainable ways."

I look away from his mouth so I don't see him chewing food. I ask him if he already has a Vaporeon that he works with. He seemed to know what they were like.

He says, "Used to; I had a partner for a little under a decade, but he retired just last month. I was thrilled to have your grandfather offering to send me a new recruit! That's why I sold him that stone of yours. We made a deal; I'd give him the Eon-stone, and he'd send back to me whomever uses it. I badly miss the help, so I took the offer in a heartbeat."

He gave me a tomato. It was a little soft, but it wasn't rotten just yet, so I tried to eat it without getting the juice everywhere. He said he didn't have very much on hand besides fish and 'fermented elixir,' but he said once I got money from working I could buy whatever I wanted from the markets.

After I was done, I asked him if I could take a bath. He looked at me all weird like he didn't know what a bath was, but he had a barrel that looked like was cut in half, and he filled it with water for me and put it out behind the house in the alley.

I didn't really like that bath. Somehow it made me feel even dirtier, and it made me miss the river next to my home. And it was really cold water. But I got all the tomato off my face and I licked all of the salt-dust out of my fur. Or at least I did my best, it was annoying having the gem harness still attached to my chest. Then I just sat in the barrel for a while and stared at the sky. I could see some of the stars from between the houses, just like how I used to be able to see them from between the trees. At least they looked like the same stars. It was the only thing so far that stayed the same.

After that I climbed out of the barrel and I shook off as much of the water as I could, then I clawed at the door until Brunt let me back in. I felt like sleeping, and I was going to ask where I could sleep, but before I could say anything, Brunt says, "Hey, I found it."

He sets down an open book on the floor in front of me. On one page, there were some big words in black ink. I look at the words. They say, "SPELL FOR THE EON STONE: AH-CHEE-PEE-OH-MU-TA-TEE-OH"

He smiles and he says, "There, just say that word."

I don't dare say the word.

He says, "Well? What are you waiting for?" He looks really excited, but I just turn away and stare at the floor. I ask him where I can sleep.

He says, "Come on now, don't leave me in suspense. Can't you just say the word? You might like what happens."

I start to feel very dark and my legs feel heavy. I don't say anything. I just keep staring at the floor. I feel like asking him to go away, but I don't want to be rude. So I just don't say anything.

He says, "Ah, my dear, those cold feet of yours aren't going to get you anywhere in life. But I understand. Perhaps another day."

He takes the book away and he gets me a brown basket and he puts some kind of a green cushion on it. It smells like sheep. He says, "Sorry I'm no good with this hospitality stuff, I spend most of my time on ol' Keldeo after all. But I hope this will be comfortable for tonight. Get your rest."

I sat down on it and I put my tail around my face. He puts out the lanterns and walks into another room. The floors still creak so loudly wherever he walks.

And I remember, the pillow was very comfortable, but I couldn't sleep well because I hurt. I felt just like the way I felt when I stepped on a dead branch and fell out of a tree. I felt like I broke my legs and there wasn't anyone around to help me up and carry me back home.

I tried not to get tears onto the pillow.

* * *

I slept for a long time, but it wasn't very deep. And when I woke up, I didn't know where I was. My dreams made the cabin feel like my family's den, and it was confusing. I couldn't go back to sleep because the sunlight in the windows.

I dropped out of the basket and carefully padded around the room. I didn't see Brunt anywhere and I didn't hear him walking around. I started to wonder if he left to go do things in town. I decided to explore his house and look at all the things he owned. The shelves had some nice things on them, like small seashells that were painted and strung together like jewelry. There were also some metal charms and colored cloths. Some of the things looked very valuable, but some of them looked worthless. I wondered if these were the things that Brunt bought with the money he made working on his boat. I saw a few skulls from dead animals, probably sea creatures. I didn't recognize any of them. And I had seen heaps of skulls before, because Snap liked to collect them. He collected so many that Grandpa would always make him throw some out.

But then I found an empty space above the hearth that was supposed to have something in it, but didn't. There were just a few hooks on the wall that weren't holding anything. I thought it was weird, because the rest of the shelves were so full and the wall was decorated with things completely. Whatever it was, it was small, because the hooks were very close together.

I looked down underneath the hooks, and there was a fossil. It was a big piece of sand-stone with a paw-print in it. I put my paw into it, and I realized that the paw print was the same shape as my paw, but much bigger. Then I realized it was probably a fake fossil, because there was an etching in the side of the rock. It said "Lynn".

I wondered if Lynn was the Vaporeon that worked with Brunt. I looked at the size of the paw-print again. It was really big. I started wondering, if I became a Vaporeon, would my paws become that big, too?

I remembered the Eon-stone again, and I looked down at my chest where it still was. I saw that the metal container for the stone had four loops, and they were as far apart as the hooks on the wall were. I realized that this is where it came from. The stone really did belong to Brunt. Grandpa had gotten it because of a deal he made. But before that, it was hanging on the wall right there. I wondered how long it was there.

Then I hear Brunt coming in the door and I get off the hearth really quickly. I didn't want him to see me touching his things. I got back down into the basket and I pretended that I just woke up, and he comes in the door. He isn't holding anything, he just comes in the door and looks at me.

He says, "Good afternoon, Jasmine. Did you sleep well?"

I lie and I say yes.

He says, "So, do you think you feel like evolving today? I would be patient, but I'm about to set off with a shipment and I really could use your help. If you evolved, we could get right to work."

I sigh. I don't feel as bad as I did before I slept, but whenever he talks about evolving, I still feel so uneasy. I say, "What if I don't like being a Vaporeon?"

He laughs and says, "Well, that if you do? Every Vaporeon I've ever met had no regrets. They really liked it. Of course, I've only ever met one. Har, har."

I almost growl at him because it wasn't a funny joke.

He stops laughing and he looks close at me. He kneels and he looks at me kindly, and he says, "Well, Jasmine, why don't we make this simpler? Can you tell me what's keeping you? What are you waiting for, exactly?"

I calm down a little, and I try to be honest with him. I say, "I'm trying to figure out if I'll like it or not, I guess."

He grins and me, and he says, "Well, I've got news for you, my dear. You'll never figure it out at this rate. The only way to find out for sure is to just say the words and evolve. Then ten years down the line, maybe, you'll finally be able to decide whether it was a good choice or not. But that's the thing! It's going to be a blind leap of faith no matter how you look at it. Most things in life are like that. And you can only tell so much about the future before you cross the point of no return. If everyone had the power to go back in time and do things differently, this world of ours wouldn't make much sense, would it?"

"I guess," I say.

He says, "Besides, you know, deciding not to evolve is a leap of faith too. Dare I may say that it's an even bigger one than evolving, what with all the things the real world throws at you once you decide to venture out beyond your home pond. As someone who was once a 'gnaw, I could tell you this."

Thankfully he dropped the topic for a while. He gave me some fruit. I didn't know what kind of fruits they were, but they tasted fine and they made me full. He had more fish for himself. I wondered if that's the only thing he ever ate.

Then he told me we were going to town to look at Keldeo, his boat. I followed and stayed close behind him while we walked through the town. I was still a small little fox compared to the rest of these things I saw all around me. I was afraid of getting stepped on.

It was such a big city and there were so many things I didn't understand! There were carts and crates and barrels and marketplaces and gulls in the air. And it all stank of the same fishy salt. I really could not tell any of the creatures apart by their scents, it was that bad.

But then, Brunt led me down to the beach. The beach was much simpler. There were some creatures there playing in the shallow water, but mostly it was deserted. The sand sank under my paws whenever I took a step, and it was a little harder to walk than normal. I just followed him down next to the shoreline, trying not to let the water touch me whenever it came up onto the sand. I noticed that it left so much stuff on the shore every time it moved, like seashells and watery knots of plants.

As I'm walking and looking over the ocean again, I see the piers. They're giant walls that stick up out of the shore and extend over the ocean, like some god just left a big plank in the water and forgot about it. Some of them have boats next to them. I keep hopping over the drifts that Brunt is making with his tail and I wonder how far we have to walk to the boat that is his.

I decided to ask him that, but he says, "Actually, before we go to ol' Keldeo, I had something else in mind that I thought you'd like to do first."

And I start thinking, it's swimming. Please, I hope it's not swimming. I don't want to swim. That water is so dirty and the waves look too rough. I'd probably drown on the first try.

But as I was panicking thinking about having to swim, that's the moment when my life actually started to change. That was when I saw _him_.

There was another creature on the shore with us. At first I ignore him, because I thought he's just another kid splashing around in the water. But as he gets closer, I start to see that he's a water-monster like Brunt, with kind of the same spikes running down his back. He's walking through the deeper part of the shore and blending in with it really well.

Maybe I was just keen because I was a fox, but Brunt didn't notice him until he came out of the water and stood on the beach. That was when I gasped, because I realized that he was a fox, too. But he was also a fish. He was a fox and a fish at the same time.

And I realized what a Vaporeon was supposed to be. I kept thinking that I would just get a fin or two and be able to swim a little better. But seeing him finally made me understand that it was something much more. My whole form would change. My skin would change color and I would lose all of my fur. I would be so much larger. And I would be a fish. An actual fish. This is so much for me to take all at once that I just stop walking.

Brunt doesn't notice my surprise, though. He seems really happy to see him. He runs ahead and starts saying, "Aww, Lynn! Good to see you! Glad I caught you while you were in Crawdaunt. Thanks for coming on such short notice. It's good to see you again, buddy. You haven't grown a bit."

Lynn, the Vaporeon, strides through the sand. His fish-tail drags behind him and covers up all the paw-prints he makes. The whole time, I'm just staring at him, like I can't believe he even exists. He looks nothing like Grandpa. Nothing at all.

He spoke, and his voice was deep, but dry and grumbly, and I could tell he was old. He said, "You know I spend most of my time in the reef. Where else would you have expected to find me?"

Brunt scratches the Vaporeon on the forehead and rubs his back, and he says, "Well, the ocean's quite a big place. If you decided to take another one of your little vacations, there'd really be no way of knowing."

After they talk for a minute Brunt remembers I'm there. He says, "Lynn, there's someone I'd like you to meet. This is Jasmine, she'll be your replacement aboard ol' Keldeo. Jasmine, this is Lynn, a longtime partner of mine."

Lynn the Vaporeon walks up to me with a very deep smile. He bows his head and he says, "Good day to you, young lady. A pleasure to meet you."

I couldn't respond at first because I was still so mesmerized with his voice and watching the way his tail and his legs moved and wondering how it would feel if I were in that body. But he did look really strong. He was bigger than some of the dark-hounds back from the forest. It actually made me scared a little because he reminded me of them.

I finally squeak an answer. I don't remember what I said.

Brunt says, "Jasmine is having some reservations about evolving. I was wondering if you'd be willing to talk to her."

He looks right at me, and I see that his eyes are completely black. They're like the eyes of a spider. Just black like they're completely made of ink.

He came so close that I could feel him breathing onto me. And I could start seeing into his eyes. They weren't completely black after all. Looking up close, I could see that they were very deep with soft colors. I shivered, because I could tell just by looking into his eyes that he was a wise old creature like the village elders. He looked down at my Eon-stone.

He smiles at me and he says, "So I see."

He says a few things to Brunt, then he turns to me again and says, "Come, Jasmine. Walk with me." And I follow him.

We walk beside the sea for a while. I'm still looking at him the whole time. I'm amazed that a fox could ever be like a fish. I'm looking at the different shape of his snout and the fins on his head and the different way his legs move compared to other foxes.

We walk so far that we actually get to one of the big piers. He leads me underneath it, past the big wooden pillars, and it looks a bit strange underneath. It's mossy down here, and lot of wood and weeds have washed up between the rocks. But it's shady and a nice place to relax. Although I still feel like holding my breath sometimes because it smells so weird.

He jumps up onto a rock and he looks at me, and he curls his tail around his legs, just like a normal fox would do. Except it's a fish tail.

He says to me, "Jasmine, there's an old poem that I know. I would like it if you would recite the poem with me. Would you do that?"

I told him I'd try.

He says, "Repeat with me: As surely as the stalk shall sprout and grow,"

I speak in my feeble little voice compared to his, "As surely as the stalk shall sprout and grow…"

"As surely as the sun and stars shall flow,"

"As surely as the sun and stars shall flow,"

"With pride, I proclaim, _accipio mutatio._"

I bite my tongue before I speak the last line.

Lynn shakes his head. "No, no, Jasmine. You must not hesitate. Say it with me as I speak. Now, from the beginning… As surely as the stalk shall sprout and grow…"

And I just blurt, "I'm scared."

And I really was, more than ever. I was shaking the same way I shook when I stood on the cliff over the ocean and I tried to look down and thought the rocks were about to break. I felt like I was about to fall, even though there was no cliff around. I just wanted to scream and hope that someone would catch me. I sat down onto the muddy sand because I couldn't stand up anymore.

But Lynn nods, and he says in a really soft voice, "Would you like me to tell you why you are scared?"

I just nod to him, yes.

Lynn says, "You're scared because you feel powerless. The world has changed right before your eyes in ways that you never imagined, and now you find yourself afraid to do anything because you feel small and weakly. You're _cowering_. You don't know how to take a stand."

Lynn jumps down from the rock and looks down at me, and he says, "But you are forgetting something, Jasmine. You are an Eon, specially crafted by nature for one purpose: to _adapt_. No matter what life may do to you, you can stand up and challenge the world on its own terms. Utter the words and I promise you that will not be powerless anymore."

Yeah, I was cowering, just like he said. I was just sitting there in the mud and it was getting all over my fur and my paws, but I couldn't stand back up. I just looked at him. But for some reason, I started to trust what he said. I did feel weak and I really did want to be strong like he was.

He walks over to me, and again, he comes so close that I can feel his breath. And he puts his head right next to mine, and he whispers. I remembered that his voice sounded just like the way the ocean did when the waves came up on shore.

He says, "Do not fear. I am not trying to take anything away from you. I can only promise you one thing. Look out at the sea."

I look out past the pier and I see how the ocean goes out so far that it turns into the sky. I see boats floating on the ocean far away, and they look so small. When I see how small those boats are, I realize that the ocean is even bigger than I thought. It's not just big like a forest or a mountain. It's big like the sky. The whole sky.

Lynn whispers to me even more quietly. He says, "Jasmine, I promise: if you utter the words, and if you make friends with the sea… no one will _ever_ be able to tell you what to do, ever again. Not me, not Brunt, not anyone. Because you can just disappear out there and no one can catch you. You will be truly free. I know this because I was there. And I still am. I am _free_. No one truly knows what it means to be free until they have seen the sea the way I have seen it."

I listened to him and I trusted him. I wanted to be free. More than ever I just wanted to be free! I wanted to be free from everyone trying to push me into things I didn't want to do. I wanted to get away and go back to things that were more familiar.

He put a paw on my shoulder and he looked right into my eyes. It was something that Grandpa would do when he needed to talk to me privately. But he was never mean. He always said things that didn't hurt me. And if there was something hard, he would always help me through it and show me what to do.

And I guess that's why I put my trust in him. I daydreamed and I thought I was talking to Grandpa in the shade of the woods. It was such a powerful daydream that I thought I wasn't talking to a fish-fox anymore. I thought I was talking to Grandpa, the one I trusted more than anyone else.

And he told me to recite the poem with him again, and I trusted him completely.

"As surely as the stalk shall sprout and grow…"

I was hypnotized by his voice and the way his eyes were so deep. I said it with him, "As surely as the stalk shall sprout and grow."

He smiled, the way Grandpa would always smile when he was proud of me, and he said, "As surely as the sun and stars shall flow."

I was happy he was proud of me. "As surely as the sun and stars shall flow."

"With pride, I proclaim, _accipio mutatio!_"

As soon I realize I said the words, all the trust and comfort I felt was gone. I _hated him_. He tricked me! He betrayed me! He hypnotized me somehow and made me say the words, I just knew it! I wanted to attack him!

I felt so bad. I felt used. I wanted to scream and cry. But I couldn't move. It felt like I was up to my neck in thick mud.

I closed my eyes, and the dark that's usually behind my eyes just turned white.

I could feel the changes happening to me. I kept my eyes closed so tightly. I didn't want to see what was happening. I felt my tail changing and growing longer. I felt my head tingling as my fins grew. I felt my body getting so big that it snapped all the chains that held the Eon-stone and the brace just fell off.

Eventually it stopped, but I still had my eyes closed tight. I remember Lynn saying, "It's alright, Jasmine. It's all done."

And I opened my eyes. The first thing I noticed was that I wasn't looking up to Lynn anymore. I was almost at the same level as him. The second thing I realized was that I could smell him. The smells of salt and fish that seemed to be everywhere around the ocean weren't so bad anymore. I could smell past them and understand things again.

I didn't hate him anymore, but I didn't really know what to feel. I felt empty, like all my feelings were just gone. I looked down at myself now that I had a body that belonged to someone else. All my fur was gone. I had blue skin that I guess felt like the surface of a pumpkin or something. My mane was still white, but now it was made of fish-fin.

It just… I don't know how to describe how I felt. I just knew that I was no longer me. I was someone else.

Lynn just said, "Congratulations on your evolution," and he smiled. Then he said, "You're beautiful."

I stood up and I felt like I was towering over the mud and the sand. Even the broken chain was so far below me. And the mud that had gotten onto my belly didn't make me feel so dirty. Whenever I fell in the mud I would always have to spend an hour in the stream trying to get it all out of my fur, but now it just kind of slid off me.

After that, I still wasn't sure what to feel, and I didn't feel like talking all that much. The first time I tried to talk, I made this weird whooping sound that I didn't recognize, and I clamped my mouth shut and didn't say anything else for a long time. Lynn led me back to Brunt and then he just went away into the ocean, and Brunt took me up the beach so we could get onto the top of the piers. It was the weirdest thing when I noticed I could see more of Brunt now. Somehow his head seemed even bigger than before.

I walked along behind him and ignored the other creatures I saw. I was just happy that I could still walk. There was this nagging feeling that I was always about to trip and plant my face into the gravel, but I moved my legs in the same pattern as I had always moved them, and they seemed to support me. But my tail was another thing altogether. When I looked back at it, it was so long that I thought it was a whole separate creature following me. Like it was a snake or something! I wasn't sure how to carry it. I just let it drag along the ground behind me just like I saw Lynn do.

Brunt took me onto one of the piers. It was very high and my fear of heights started nagging me again, so I tried not to look straight down at the water. When he led me onto his boat, I had to walk across this scary bridge that was so narrow and had no rails, and it was then that my new legs started to get confusing. But I stumbled up the bridge and made it into the boat.

Brunt was very happy to show me around the boat. He says, "Welcome aboard ol' Keldeo, my freighter. Fully-laden it holds about fifty-eight tons, a little low for a Seadra-class vessel, but I swear you've never seen a cleaner cut upon the waves. Yeah, I love her for everything, but most of all for her _speed_."

He showed me down below in the cabins where the crew lived, and he showed me the cargo room. It was already fully packed with crates and barrels.

"We can set off anytime, I was just waiting for you, you know!" he says. "When the destination isn't too far, I can pilot her with only my own wits and one assistant."

He showed me the big sails that were all wound up on top of the mast. He showed me the big wooden wheel he used to steer. And he showed me over the side of the boat. There were several strings attached to the boat that ran all the way down into the water.

"She's shackled to shore with five anchors," Brunt says to me. "See those cables? Of course, it's a pain having to reel all of them in every time we land ashore, and it adds to her weight and takes away from her carrying capacity. So here's what I did. I just dropped the anchors at the foot of the shoreline, just like that, and they stay down there. And those buoys hold up the cables to the surface. What you'll need to do is dive underneath the buoys and unhook those latches so that Keldeo can go free. Then when we come to port again, chain 'er back up. Think you can do that for me?"

I'm peering over the edge of the boat and it's a very long way down. I back away from the edge.

He says, "Well? Let's give her a test run, shall we? Go on, see if you can go unhook the anchors."

I say, "I… right now?" And I cringe at the sound of my voice because it isn't mine.

He says, "Well, yeah! We can sail down the shore. I have some deliveries to make that way out, and we'll only be gone for three days. I've got plenty of necessities aboard, so let's make this your maiden voyage, right!"

I hiss quietly and I start looking for the way back down off the ship so I can figure out how to swim and unhook the anchors like he says. He asks me where I'm going, and I tell him this.

He says, "Aww, come on now, dear, there's a much faster way down, you know!"

And before I know what's happening, he _picks me up and throws me off the boat._

It was such a long way down that there were a few moments in midair that I realized I was falling. I was so terrified… I reached with all of my paws for something to cling to, and I screamed so loudly. I remember, I thought I heard owls. I didn't know it was the sound of my own scream.

When I sank underneath the water I didn't realize it at first. I drew another breath to scream and I inhaled the sea water. Into my air-lungs. I coughed it back out so violently that I felt like I was actually dying. I remembered the taste of salt that was so strong and it went all the way down my throat. I thrashed around in the water but I couldn't seem to find where the air was. I was just blind and helpless and I was sure that I was going to die.

I felt Brunt's claw on my belly. He wrapped his arm around me underneath my front legs and he pulled me up to the surface. Next thing I knew I was on his shoulder and I held on so tightly that I started digging into his scales with my claws. I kept coughing up the water, and each time I coughed it felt like claws were tearing my heart apart.

Brunt said, "I learned something new today: that there's such thing as a water-mon who can't swim."

After I heard him say that, I don't remember much of what happened. I think I blacked out.

And that was the first time I tried to swim as a Vaporeon.

* * *

I woke up the Brunt's basket with an ache in my head and in my chest. It was the one I slept in the previous night. The basket seemed much smaller to me, but I could still fit in if I curled my tail up tight.

My fish tail. I couldn't stop looking at it. I prodded it with my nose and tried to lick it like I always would when I would clean my tail. But it didn't feel right. It seemed so weird and slimy.

I started to realize that I would never have my real tail again. Or any of my fur. I was stuck with this fish tail.

And when I was thinking about that, it made me hurt. I got really angry. I hated Brunt for throwing me in the water, and I hated Lynn for getting me to say the words. I even hated Grandpa for sending me out here to the sea. I didn't want to be here. I didn't want any of this.

My throat hurt and I hacked out some more water. It got all over Brunt's rug.

I stepped up and out of the basket. I saw that the sheep-pillow was covered in water-stains and still damp.

I decided to leave.

I tried walking toward the door, but I didn't understand how my body moved. It was much larger than I was used to, and I kept bumping into things. My huge fish-tail kept hitting the walls. But I didn't care. I was heading for the door. I was leaving.

Then I hear a voice saying, "Are you sure you're ready to leave?"

I'm frightened and I turn around. Lynn is there. Just right there in the house, and I never noticed him. He was sitting next the hearth.

And my contempt just overflows and I scream at him.

I tell him I never wanted to be a Vaporeon. I tell him I never wanted to leave home. I tell him I don't like the ocean, I don't like fish, and I don't like salt. I tell him I want my fur back. I tell him I want my family back. All the while I'm screaming like I'm insane and my voice doesn't always come out the way I want to because it sounds so different, and I'm jumping around the house in rage and bumping into things. But Lynn just sits there and listens to me without responding.

When I feel like I'm running out of breath, I just scream as loudly as I could at the time, and I say, "Why? Why did you trick me?! Why did you make me evolve?! Why did you promise me that I would be free?"

I felt like saying more, but I get a raspy throat again and I cough up more of the water I had inhaled. When I thought I couldn't say anything more, I just fall onto the floor and I glare at Lynn.

Lynn just waits until I'm done, then he comes and stands in front of me.

And he just says very calmly, "Would you like me to show you why?"

And I just… I can't really explain why I decided to trust him again. Maybe I was just too weak to do anything else. I was weak and cowering just like always.

I didn't know what else to say. So I said yes.

So he took me to the seaside again.

So there I am, standing next to him and looking at the ocean again. He says, "See how the water is farther away from the beach than it was yesterday? That is called the tide. It happens throughout the day on a fixed schedule. It is useful to know, because as the tide is rising and falling, the current and the undertow change."

I ask him where Brunt went. He tells me that Brunt had to go sail his ship without me, and that he wouldn't be back for three days. And in those three days he would teach me how to swim.

He starts by telling me that I can breathe the water just like I can breathe the air, but I need to use my gills to breathe the water. I start trying to paw at my neck to find my gills, but he tells me that my gills aren't like a fish's gills, that they're inside of my throat. He says I need to search and find the muscles that control my gills. He says that my throat will block out the water from my air-lungs just as it blocks out food that I eat, as long as I am using my gills.

And then he steps down into the water and tells me to follow him.

The water doesn't feel that bad. It's cold, but it's a comfortable sort of cold. The way the water is always moving and little waves that are hitting me even feels kind of nice. I just can't shake the feeling that I'll need to spend all day sunbathing to dry out my fur again.

Then he just keeps walking, and I'm following, and suddenly I feel the ground start to drop out from under my feet. I was going to panic, but then I remembered that I could paddle. And I did. I treaded water and kept my head well above the surface, and I held my breath whenever a wave would try to splash water onto my face.

So I'm thinking: okay, so far, this isn't so bad. Lynn even seems happy for me.

Then he tells me to try breathing the water. He tells me to go all the way under the surface and try to use my gills.

That's a bit harder to do. I learned about what drowning is so early in my life that the old instincts are hard to overcome, but I told myself I was a fish now and I could do it.

I cringed really hard and closed my eyes, and I put my face beneath the surface. Then I took a mouthful of the cold, salty water and tried to figure out what to do with it. But then there was a reflex reaction, and the water just disappeared. My mouth was empty again.

I opened my mouth and swallowed more water, and I just lost track of where it went. I felt it going down my throat, but I wasn't choking.

That made me feel more comfortable. I took a big sigh of relief, underwater, and it actually worked. I opened my eyes, and it tingled with cold at first, but then it felt perfect. There was nothing wrong with the water.

I paddled down under the surface of the water and looked at the sand. There were things sticking out of it, and I think some of them were alive, but I didn't know what they were. I just started following the sand as it kept sloping down. It was hard to see underwater at first, and even harder to move, but I finally made my peace with the water and proved that I could swim.

Lynn was following me. He watched me swim deeper down and see the things beneath the water for the first time. I didn't realize it, but we were very far from the shore by that time, and there was a lot of space to swim around in. I got bored of looking at the shells and the seaweed, and I turned to him.

When Lynn spoke I was surprised that I could hear him so well. The water made weird sounds in my ears and blocked out all the sounds from above the surface, but Lynn's voice seemed so clear, like we weren't even in the water at all.

He says to me, "Very good. Now I want you to do a few things for me. First, I want you to stop moving."

I do so. I relax all my muscles and I let the water carry me back and forth, up and down.

Then he says, "Now, I want you to stop breathing."

That surprised me. I thought, stop breathing? That went against every instinct that I had. But I gave it a try, and I held my breath.

It was like a dream; I was floating there completely limp, held by the water, just letting it move me and pull me around without fighting it. And I stopped breathing… and it didn't feel bad. I didn't feel like I would start suffocating. All I could feel was the sound of the waves and the sound of my own heartbeat. It was surreal.

It really felt like many dreams I've had in my life until then. I started to learn that the water didn't want to hurt me.

I see Lynn swimming in front of me, dashing and striding so smoothly and quickly around in the water… He looks at me and says, "Do you want to know why you don't need to breathe anymore? Because you have already taken in enough water to last you a while. Most water-types can hold four times their body mass in water, and you keep it in your very soul. It ceases to exist in the physical realm until you need to use it again. When you come to need more water, you'll know."

"I keep it in my soul?" I say, and I hear my voice so clearly through the water, just like his.

He says, "It is unexplainable, but so are many things in this world. I am going to show you something else that is difficult to explain. I'm going to teach you how to _truly_ swim."

Lynn disappears behind me, but I don't follow him with my eyes. I just keep drifting in place, not moving, not breathing. I wait for his words.

He says to me, "When you thrust your limbs against the current, don't try to propel yourself forward. It is not necessary. The ocean can do it for you. Pretend that the water which touches and surrounds you is under your command, like an extension of your body. When you paddle, it is merely a gesture, telling the water which direction to send you."

Now I know, that was the last moment before I understood what my new body was really like. When I evolved, I had grown up on the outside, and here, I was about to grow up on the inside, too.

So I'm still floating still and trying to understand what Lynn is talking about, about gesturing to the water. And I'm looking out across the ocean floor. The sand just keeps sloping down and it gets dark, and the sun looks very strange from underneath the water. The sunlight turns into bubble shapes on the sand which are always changing. I'm wondering if I should go forward into the dark.

And Lynn just says, "Go on, Jasmine. Swim for me. Wherever you want to go, ask the water to take you there. The water likes you. It will do what you want."

And so I try. I give the water a little stroke with all four of my limbs. Like I was just hinting at the water that I wanted to go forward. And in my mind, I was pretending that there was a spirit in the water, and that it would hear me when I asked for help.

And… the water took me forward a few feet. I went much farther than I thought I would go with just the little swimming motion I had made. I started to understand Lynn. I knew that I wasn't swimming under my own strength. I knew there was a spirit there in the water, or something. Maybe it was my own spirit. Maybe that's just what Vaporeon are like.

Lynn says, "Good, keep going!"

So I do. I nudge the water again, and it moves me even farther forward. I feel it rushing past me like the hard currents of the streams after it would rain in the spring. I felt my fin-mane folding back with the pressure and I felt my tail trailing along behind me.

And I realized swimming was really easy. It was so effortless. I barely used any strength. I wondered how fast I could go.

So I tried to swim faster. I pawed at the water anxiously like I was in a hurry. I started paddling very hard. And I started going very fast. Very, very fast.

The sea floor was a blur. The feel of the water on my face started feeling like I was looking up from underneath a waterfall. And it was fun. Oh, my. It was fun.

It felt so surreal and comfortable, yet so thrilling, like one of those flying dreams I would always have. I really was flying through the ocean. The cool water was just the right temperature, and the currents felt like a nice breeze. And I wanted to go even faster, so I started lunging with all my strength in all of my limbs. I wanted to see just how fast I could go. I wanted to know what the limit was.

What happened next was… well, I found my answer, I think. I remember that I was watching the sea floor and trying to follow it down, so I could understand how fast I was swimming. But then everything I saw stopped making sense to me. I was swimming so fast that I could only see the shapes of things and I couldn't quite understand what they were. It was like I was falling. I was falling sideways through the sea.

I found that I could change directions as easily as giving a small twitch of my tail or a paddle of my paws. At one point I saw a rock coming right for me, sticking out of the sand down below. I flicked with my right paws, then with my left paws, and then the rock was behind me. Just like that, I swam around it. What amazing agility! I tried going in other directions; I tried swimming straight up back to the surface, but I turned just before I hit the air and I went back down. It was all so easy. I tried swimming in circles and big knots, and it was all so easy. I never got tired and I never ran out of breath. I was unstoppable.

But eventually I snap out of it and I realize I have no idea how far away from shore I was or what directions I had been swimming. The sea floor had dropped down so far that I couldn't see it anymore. I felt just a little worried. So I stopped myself. I stopped paddling and I guess I turned my body sideways a little, and I slowed down until I didn't move anymore. And for a moment, I thought I was completely lost in the ocean.

But Lynn was there right beside me. He had followed me the whole way. He looks really happy for me. He swims above me and he looks down, and he says, "Very good, Jasmine! Congratulations on your first transmutation."

I asked what transmutation was, and he showed me. He started swimming around me, striding with his legs, but then he suddenly disappeared.

I gasped when I saw it. He really disappeared. He turned into a stream of mist and bubbles. I watched the stream flow around me so fast, then he appeared again where the stream stopped.

I saw him smile at me, and I realize… I did the same thing. I turned into a stream of bubbles too. That's how I was swimming so fast!

He says, "When you come in contact with the water, you can _become_ like the water. When you do, you will still feel whole, and you will feel as though you still control your body. But in fact, you are a living current, hidden from the eye of onlookers, flowing effortlessly wherever you choose. Few water-types have this ability, and you and I are among them. It is… unexplainable. But unexplainably wonderful, is it not?"

Yeah. Yeah, it was wonderful. My heart was racing. I wanted to do it again.

But he didn't let me. He asked me to follow him back to shore, so I did. It took a while. I had gone almost half a mile after I turned into water! A few times, he let me turn into water again on the way back to shore, but as long as I followed him.

When I stepped back onto the beach, I felt hot and dry, and I didn't have to shake. The water just all fell off of me and I was dry. But I didn't want to be dry anymore. I just wanted to turn around and go back.

I ask Lynn how long Vaporeon can stay in the water before they need to come back out. He laughs and he says, "Wrong question, Jasmine, but I'll answer it anyway: _indefinitely. _A Vaporeon never needs to leave the water. Now, can you think of the correct question?"

I shiver when I hear that I can just stay in the water forever. _Forever_. It's like… I don't even know what's under there. It still looked dull and empty to me. But I just wanted to be down there, because it was so comfortable. It was like that feeling I would get when it would be cold and snowing outside the den, but Grandma would let me snuggle next to her and be warm. I felt just like that when I was swimming in the ocean and turning into water.

Then I ask how long a Vaporeon can stay on land before they need to go back into the water.

Lynn nods and says, "Very good. The answer depends on how much water you hold in your soul. If your soul is empty, then you can survive without water for about nine days. If your soul is full, then significantly longer, perhaps thirty days or more. But when you're on land, it is important to always know where the closest body of water is, and to drink fluids whenever you can. Around here in the port town, that's not difficult; you can always rely on the sea to be there."

As I'm walking on the shore and getting sand all over my paws, I still feel like I'm swimming. I feel like the sand is moving underneath me. I turn back and look at the ocean. I really wished I could just go back and keep swimming. But the thinking side of my mind didn't want to get lost, especially after the sun went down and the sea would be so dark.

Lynn turns to look at the ocean with me, and he says, "Now can you see that I did not lie to you?"

I say yes. He was right. And I was sorry for yelling at him.

He says, "You are free now. You have a choice. You could, if you wanted, run back out to the sea, run away from me, and Brunt, and all of Port Craw, and disappear, never to be seen again. No one could find you, and no net could hold you. But, if you so chose, instead, maybe you could go back to Brunt's residence and sleep there for the night, and meet me here tomorrow so I can teach you more?"

Of course I told him I would meet him. He walked back to the house with me and made sure I could get in. Then we parted ways for the evening.

I looked out over the ocean before I went in the house. The sun was setting again, and it was so gorgeous. I realized that I was a fish-fox, and that I could never be anything else. But I realized I didn't want to be anything else anymore. Being a fish-fox was fine. So far, at least.

When I slept that night, I didn't dream of the forest anymore. I dreamed of flying around in the ocean and turning into water.

I went swimming with Lynn for two more days, and he showed me more things about being a Vaporeon. He showed me how to use the water I had taken into my soul to attack enemies. I could spit it back out, very powerfully if I wanted. He also taught me how to use my speed to jump out of the water very high in the air.

Brunt came back after three days, just like Lynn said, and Lynn was going to disappear into the ocean again. On the last day, I begged him to stay. I said that I wanted to learn more about swimming and how the ocean works. But he just stood there on the shoreline and smiled at me one more time, and he said, "There is only so much I can teach you about the sea, Jasmine. If you want to learn more, you will need to discover it for yourself. Let your instincts guide you. You have good instincts; they won't lead you wrong."

And then he just… left. He walked into the ocean and he was gone.

I didn't see him again for a long time.

* * *

So Brunt and I got to start a new shipment right away. This time I was much more prepared. He had a big crowd of monsters lift all the metal crates and load them into the cargo space on Keldeo. Then I dove down into the water underneath the boat – it went down so far! – and I found all the latches for the anchor cables and I detached them all on the first try. Then I got back onto the boat and we set sail.

I remember, I was sitting on the deck of Keldeo and I actually felt happy. The boat bobbed up and down on the water, and it reminded me of when I was in the water. And I was finally starting to like the smell of salt, and the way the wind always blew in from the ocean, and just everything.

Brunt is moving the wheel which steers the boat, and he seems awkward, like he didn't like to talk to me very much. But he asks me if I feel better about being a Vaporeon. I just say yes, I feel alright about it.

Then he says, "I'm real sorry for chucking you off into the water. That's what my dad did to me, and it worked fine. Instincts kicked right in. So, I thought it would do the same for you."

I tell him it's alright. I forgive him.

He says, "I won't lie, you had me real worried there. I thought I had lost you. Thought my Eon-stone and my new partner was just gonna disappear into the mist after doing that. Thought for sure, I'd come back to shore, and you'd just be gone. So for the three days I sailed, it felt like Keldeo and I were sailing through the tides of my own shame."

Then he leaves the wheel and he comes onto the deck where I am, and he sits on a chest and looks at me. He says, "Because, I learned a long time ago that being friends with a Vaporeon is all about… being able to stand one another. I need to be someone you enjoy being around talking to. I need to be a reason you get on this ship whenever I need you. Because if I'm not, anytime at all, you could just…" and he waved at the ocean.

I ask him if Lynn had ever done that to him.

He looks down, and he says, "Once or twice, maybe. But I guess I was doing something right, because he always came back eventually. I like to think we parted on good terms when he retired. He answers my messages, so I suppose we did. Just… promise me something, Jasmine. If you ever want to disappear, let me know ahead of time, alright? Just so I can prepare myself. Maybe send for one of my nephews to give me a hand."

I promise him I would.

After he said that, he went back to the wheel to steer some more. I didn't really understand how the boat knew which direction to go from the wheel. I thought that maybe it was one of those unexplainable things that Lynn told me about.

So I just went to the edge of the boat and watched the water. I watched the big white waves that the boat made, and I realized the boat was going very fast. I wanted to ask Brunt if I could jump off the boat and swim around for a while. I wanted to see if I could turn into water and keep up with the boat. But I decided not to, because I didn't want to be rude. I didn't want Brunt to think I wanted to disappear into the ocean. So I stayed.

The whole ride was relaxing. The gulls started disappearing when we sailed far from the shore. Sometimes I could see other boats in the distance. At night, I could see the sun go down over the ocean. It would always turn into colors I never knew the sun could turn into.

And at night, I could stay up on the deck with Brunt and watch the stars. I had never seen so many stars in the sky before. In the forest, there were always trees or hills blocking the view. But on Keldeo, It's like I saw all the stars.

Grandpa once told me that there were more stars in the sky than creatures on the earth. I never forgot that. Even though I thought I could see every star in the sky on the nights I sailed with Brunt, I remembered there were even more stars that I couldn't see. I knew it was one of those unexplainable things.

One day, I was sitting at the back of the deck. My eyes were half-closed, I was letting myself be hypnotized by the sounds of the waves and wishing I was down there. I thought I felt myself getting thirsty. I wondered if my soul was running dry, like Lynn said. But then, Brunt jumps up from the wheel and shouts, "We're here!" And he gets very happy and excited.

I jump up and I start peering over the sides of the boat in every direction, but I don't see any land. I just see the water. Brunt says, "Overboard you go, dear! Latch the anchors and open the hangar, we've got a delivery to make!"

At first I thought he was just crazy, but then I notice buoys floating in the water. They were the same kind that were back at Port Craw that held Keldeo to the pier. I don't understand what's going on, but he doesn't have to ask me twice to jump off. I squeal for joy and I dive down into the water. It was like I never had a fear of heights at all.

I start splashing and playing around in the water because I'm so happy to be there again, and Brunt unravels the anchor-cables for me to latch. Once I'm done, I tread water at the surface and wait for Brunt's instructions. He tells me to meet him _below the boat._ I still didn't understand, but I dove down below the hull – again, it went so far down! – and I waited.

Then something really weird happened. The bottom of the boat was opening. I thought it was going to let the water in and make the boat sink, but there was air. I swam for the air, and I popped out and I realized I was looking at the cargo bay of the boat, still filled with metal boxes and all kinds of weird things. And Brunt's standing there looking very proud. He comes to me and he says, "Keldeo's a Seadra-class vessel; equipped with an airlock and a primary loading bay on the bottom of the hull itself! Specializes in undersea deliveries. Come on, this is your time to shine, Jasmine! You've got to help me get this stuff down.

So I help Brunt push the nearest bundle of stuff into the water. It's very heavy and I didn't feel like I was doing any of the work, and it makes a huge splash as it hits the water and starts to sink. I dive in after it, and to my surprise I find that it's much lighter in the water than it was in the ship. I find that if I let it rest on my back, I can hold it up with no problem.

But still, undersea deliveries? I wasn't sure what was going on. So I just follow Brunt. He's also got a big bundle of cargo, but he has it attached to a rope and he's dragging it down through the water. I start following him. Before long, I realize that there are fish here with us. There were a few different kinds. Some were orange, some were yellow, and some were gray. They were all swimming up to Keldeo.

I noticed that Brunt was saying something to one of the fish. Then one of them swam past me and said hi, and wished me a good day. I was so surprised that I almost dropped my cargo. They were talking fish! Some of them were the same kinds of fish that Brunt had in his freeze-box. Some of them were the same kind our family would roast over fire and cook with chives. But they were talking! I had no idea fish could be civil. I started wondering, could they read and learn like land-creatures could? Could they build things?

I had my answer as soon as I saw the ocean floor. It was a city. It was a whole city on the bottom of the ocean. There were buildings and caves and weird plants everywhere. There were many lights of all different colors. Fish and water-snakes and sea creatures were swimming around everywhere. It was just as busy as Port Craw.

Brunt swims near me and says, "Welcome to Crawdaunt Reef, my dear! Port Craw and Crawdaunt Reef are sister-cities. It's where the land and the sea connect. All the water 'mons in the sea come here to hear news of the land, and likewise with Port Craw and the sea. And they rely on us to bring them merchandise that they can't get anywhere down here. Today, we've got several tons of berries to deliver. They're a real delicacy down here."

I hear what he says, but I can't say anything. I'm just so mesmerized by the city.

He laughs and he says, "You want to explore, don't you? Tell you what. Help me get all these berries down into the warehouse, and when we're done I'll let you explore all you want. Alright?"

So I was patient and I did my job. I lost count, but I think it was about twenty trips, up and down, down and up, all the way from the surface of the ocean to the bottom. I was starting to get tired because the loads were so heavy, but I kept thinking of touring the town when I was done and all the new things I would see.

And after we got the last stack of boxes down into the water-house, Brunt says to me, "Well, I need to go up and get some air. Unlike some of you other 'mons, I can't stay down here forever. So have a little fun and look around? Tell me if you find anything you want to trade for, and I'll buy it for you. Just be back up in a few hours, right?"

As soon as I got permission to go, it felt like all my energy came back. I turned into water and swam all through the town as fast as I could! I almost ran into the fish that were swimming everywhere, but I was so agile that I just curved around them and went through all the crowds without touching anyone.

The whole town was built into the reef. The reef was this giant stickle bush that looked like it was made of rocks, and there were lots of gaps inside for the fish people to build things and make homes. I met many new kinds of creatures that day. I even got to talk to some of the Corsola-fish and beautiful Milotic snakes. They were very nice and welcomed me to the reef. They asked me if I was living here, and I told them no, I was just visiting. But it made me start wondering why I couldn't just live here anyway. It seemed like an awesome place for me.

And it was just amazing because I kept swimming and I couldn't find the end of the reef. There were just more and more fish and plants and underwater buildings. It was bigger than Port Craw, for sure. I just remember trying to see it all, and how pretty it was glowing in all the different colored lights they had.

I don't exactly remember how I got to the abyss. I think I just kept following the reef and I stopped to realize that the city part of the reef was gone. That there were just wild fish and no more houses. But I didn't know how far back they had ended. I just remember I stopped when I saw this giant dark chasm open up in front of me.

And I wanted to go down and explore it. The fox part of me still really liked the dark. The dark was when the predators couldn't see me. So I wanted to dive down and explore the abyss. It was like going down into my den. It made me feel safe.

And I guess I was a little overconfident, too. I just thought nothing could ever catch me, because I could just turn into water and swim away.

And I was so curious, I just kept going down into the dark. It started getting very cold, but I didn't mind. I liked the cold. It only was a little bit uncomfortable when I really got down there. I felt that there were treasures in the dark. Maybe I was going to the true bottom of the ocean and there would be special treasures down here that no other sea monster could find but me.

To my surprise, I found that I wasn't alone. There were some very weird creatures living down there in the dark and cold. I saw a few eels and some starfish, but they ignored me, so I wasn't scared. I kept following the abyss wall and searching for interesting things.

Then I saw a new kind of creature, one that I didn't see when I was exploring the reef. It was a blue fish. Kind of small. It didn't look very intimidating to me, especially not after I had just spoken face-to-face with some giant dragon-serpents earlier. But the interesting thing was, this fish was using light to guide its way. The light was coming from itself. I swam closer and I saw that the light was attached to its own fin. It was just like some of the glow-lights that the city used, but this one was attached to the fish from its back fin, hanging down in front of its face.

And I just thought it was so adorable. So I swam closer. I wanted to see if it was a talking fish. Maybe it was using a lamp-light it bought from the reef city.

As soon as it saw me, I felt fear for the first time. My instincts were telling me that I made a great big mistake. Because it thought I was an enemy. It started scowling at me and swimming closer like a predator. Just like a hungry hound or a raptor flying in the sky would.

Then it created lightning. The lightning struck me and… I felt hot. Like I had fallen into a fire.

It hurt so much. But the fish did it again. It swam closer and shocked me with lightning. I couldn't do anything. I couldn't turn into water, and I couldn't scream. The lightning made my muscles stop working.

And I saw more fish of the same kind. They were swimming behind the first one, but they weren't using their lights. When they saw me, they all lit their lights, and they all swam up to me and just kept attacking me with shocks.

It hurt so much, I hate to remember it…

It felt like there were icicles sticking into me, except they were hot and cold at the same time. I really thought I was going to die. And I couldn't fight it. I couldn't even move at all. Those angler-fish just kept hitting me with lightning and I just let it happen. It hurt so much that I just fell asleep.

* * *

When I woke up, my mouth was full of sand, and I wasn't underwater anymore.

I really didn't know where I was, and I was scared. I had gotten used to waking up in Brunt's basket, or in the cabin of Keldeo. But I woke up in the middle of the sand and I knew that I wasn't where I was supposed to be.

I spit out all the sand and I look around myself, and I find that it's a beach. But I can't see Port Craw anywhere. All I see are trees. There's a forest past the beach, no cities. There wasn't any nature in Port Craw.

Then I realize this wasn't the same beach at all. I didn't know where I was. I was lost.

I look over the ocean and I don't see anything. I try to call to Brunt and Lynn, but they aren't there.

I didn't want to believe I was lost. I thought I just drifted down the shore for a while. But then I remembered how far away from land I was. I was out in a reef that was a few days away from land. And I remembered the abyss, and the lightning-fish…

And at this point I start to panic. I understand what happened. I realize that I drifted in the ocean for a long time, and the high tide probably put me onto the beach. I knew I could go back into the water and swim away, but I didn't know which direction to go. I didn't know which direction would take me to Port Craw or to the reef.

And I begin to fear the ocean again. Even though I was a fish-fox and I could swim and turn into water, I feel terrified of the ocean again. I remember that the ocean is as big as the sky. For all I knew, I could swim straight in one direction and never see anything else for as long as I live. The ocean was so big. And I was alone. And that really scared me.

I start running toward the forest. I want to see if there are any civilized people around that could help me. I hear birds singing songs I don't recognize and animals calling to one another. It's all wilderness. But I start jumping through the trees and the plants trying to find someone to answer my questions.

And then I find that I can't run well anymore. All those years that Grandpa told me to run and keep my legs in shape, it didn't mean anything anymore. My tail keeps hitting trees and scraping on bushes. My paws don't dig into the ground very well. Even the fins on my head keep hitting things and getting scratched. And then I try to jump onto a fallen tree, but I slip off and my face goes forward and hits a rock. I screeched so loud, and I laid there for a long time waiting for the pain to go away. I realize a little late that my forehead is bleeding. But my blood isn't red anymore, it's blue.

I curled up and put my paws on the wound and I just started sobbing. All I felt right then was that I wanted Grandma and Grandpa back to lick my forehead and help it heal.

The pain went away in a while, but I knew I couldn't stay in one place. That's one thing Grandpa told me about the forest: never stay in one place for too long. So I remember which direction goes back to the ocean, and I start to explore. The forest was more like a jungle the further I went in. There were plants with nasty thorns on them, and bright colorful flowers that smelled like poison. And I saw a few creatures. One of them was much larger than me and it had blue fur. And it looked like there was lightning on its fur… I ran away from it so fast, scraping my poor fishtail on branches the whole way.

When I got back closer to the ocean where the forest was less thick, I decided that I could try to survive on my own. The first thing I needed to do was make a den, somewhere I could sleep at night without predators attacking me. So I start looking around for somewhere that could be my home. I wanted somewhere that at least looked like the home I once had. Something with water where I could take baths, nearby berry-bushes for eating and healing, good shade from the trees… I carefully crawled around in the forest for somewhere like that.

I found a place that was alright. It was next to a river. There was a fruit tree, and it grew these green fruits that I thought I saw them selling in the market at Port Craw. I started nosing around for somewhere I could dig a small den, just something big enough to fit into, so I could sleep safely at night. And I saw that the night was coming.

I kind of made one, I guess. It wasn't a very good one. I wasn't good at digging. I had to spit water at the dirt to make it softer. So the den was all muddy, but I didn't really care. I got there before nightfall and I slept as well as I could, as long as I didn't remember I was alone.

And I stayed there in the forest for a few days. I honestly started to think that it might have just been my new life. I started gathering fruit. I tried hunting some rats, but I was terrible at hunting now that I was a giant fish, so I just collected even more berries. And the river kept me from going thirsty. I think it might have been unsalted water, which made my thirst go away so much more.

Things didn't really change for me until the fourth night, when I decided, if I was going to live here on this faraway beach from now on, I would make it as much like home as I could. And there was one thing I always remembered about the den back home that I wouldn't ever forget. It was that one rock that cast a shadow into the river and told us when it was time to sleep. I wanted something just like that.

Well, I wasn't good at carrying huge rocks, so I just made a bundle of thin logs and buried them into the mud next to the river. They cast shadows, so I figured they would work. Then I explored my territory and tried to find more supplies that could help me build the den. I thought maybe I could find some giant spiders and use their silk to make rope. Or maybe some good rocks that would make nice claw-spades to help me dig.

But then I saw that the sun was going down, and rushed back home to see the shadow touch the water for the first time. And I came home to find that the shadow wasn't even close to the water. It was pointed in the wrong direction.

I thought that was so weird, and I didn't understand it. I had set up the river and the poles in the same places that Grandpa had them. I waited to see what would happen, but it just got dark and the shadows disappeared, so I went into my sloppy den and waited until the next day.

The next day, I got a pile of berries and I sat in front of the poles, and I watched it all evening. I watched the shadow go from the poles into the same wrong direction. It missed the river completely.

I was so confused. I started to think that this was just another one of those unexplainable things. But I didn't think it was. Shadows were easy to explain. Things block the light and create shadows. That's simple.

So as I'm thinking about this, I take one of the poles in my mouth and run out to the beach with it. I stick it into the sand to see what would happen. It makes a very long shadow, just like I do. The shadow points away from the sun, I realize. That makes sense. It's blocking the sunlight.

So… if the pole blocks the sunlight, why doesn't the shadow touch the river?

I walked around, and watched my own shadow. I realized that the shadow always pointed in the same direction: away from the sun. The sun was setting on the end of the beach, and the shadow was pointed sideways along the shore.

Grandpa's rock always cast a shadow away from the sun when it was setting.

That means… the sun always sets in the same part of the sky every night.

I think it was something I always knew, but I never thought about it enough. But I stood there on the beach, I looked at the sun, and I realized why the rock's shadow would always touch the riverbank at night. Because the sun always set in the same place.

Just like it always set over the seaside at Port Craw.

That's when I knew how to get home. I had to swim away from the sunset! Because that's the direction we sailed on the boat. If I wanted to go back to Port Craw I had to swim toward the sunrise.

So then I spent one last night in my pathetic little den. As soon as I woke up, I ate berries until I was full, then I ran out to the ocean and followed the morning sun. And when the beach ended, I ran into the water. And then I turned into water.

Grandpa told us once that he ran very long way in a single day just to find our eggs. That's what it felt like when I was following the sun. I swam so fast that I thought I could see the water making room for me. I didn't let anything hold me back. The waves and the currents were all just so weak compared to me. It didn't matter which way the water went, I went forward, and I didn't let the water change that.

And the amazing thing is that I never got tired. Running through the forest would always make my legs sore and make me pant hard, but swimming didn't do that. I wondered how long I would have to go before I really started to get exhausted.

At some time I decide to swim deeper so I could look for the reef, and I start seeing some fish near the bottom of the sea. When I see them I just stop swimming and I look at them. Of course, they're not intelligent fish. So they don't talk to me or anything. They just swim away. But I understood something else just then.

Fish never rest. They're always swimming. They never have to stop to sleep on the ground. They swim forever. The water supports them.

And when I realized that, I understood Lynn when he said that I could stay under the water _indefinitely. _He really did mean it. I could stay under the water forever. I would never get tired of swimming. I would never need to rest. Ever.

And I just laughed at myself. I laughed just because I was a fish and because the water liked me. I was born a fox, but my body adapted to the water and I would never need another home. I would never need to go back… except that I remembered the comet, the one that would come sometime during my life. I knew I couldn't get too lost in the ocean; I needed to know how to get back home to see my family when it came time. So I turned into water again and I kept swimming toward the sunrise.

I think I swam through a storm. The water tried very hard to shove me around, and I heard thunder. But I wasn't scared anymore. The water liked me! I knew it would keep me safe. I just kept swimming forward and the lightning never touched me.

I don't know how long or how far I swam, but I knew it when I found the reef. I was so happy to see something I recognized. But most of all, I was happy that I wasn't weak anymore. I had made it back all on my own. I was strong and free. Just like Lynn promised I would be.

I started to look around for the city in the reef, and this angler fish swims up to me. At first I'm terrified. I didn't want to get hit by lightning again. But then it talked. It was a civilized fish. It said, "Excuse me, but are you Jasmine?"

I almost forgot my name, I hadn't heard it in so long. I said yeah, that's me.

The angler fish said, "Jasmine, you were reported missing by some friends of yours. Would you like me to tell them that you're okay?"

I told the fish that I wanted to see my friends as soon as I could. It told me they were probably at Port Craw, it asked me if I would like to have some escorts take me back there. I thanked him, but I said no and I swam away. Escorts would be too slow, and besides, I wasn't tired.

I remember how excited I got when the ocean floor started sloping up. I knew the land was coming. I used a trick that Lynn taught me, and I swam right up into the air and jumped very high over the surface of the ocean. Before I fell back down, I could see the shores of Port Craw. I could see the beach, the long and tall piers, and the boats that were next to some of them. I could even see the cliff that Brunt took me on top of during my first day in the city. And I could see the tall buildings where all the land-creatures lived. It was the city where they came from all over the land to connect with the reef and hear news about the ocean. I was so happy. I felt like I was home. I kept jumping over the water just because it felt so fun.

And then I made it to the shore, and I found that Lynn was standing right there. He was very surprised to see me. He said he was just watching the ocean and wondering where I had been. I wasn't even all the way out of the water before I started blurting everything that happened. I don't think he even listened to me. He was just happy to see me.

Lynn says to me, "At first, I was not worried for you. I thought you had begun your submersion; it was natural behavior for a newly-formed Vaporeon to vanish beneath the waves. But Brunt didn't agree with me. He was very worried. He told me that you promised that you wouldn't leave without telling him first. So… I took his word for things, and I reported you missing."

I say, "My submersion? What do you mean?"

He looks at the ocean and I see the sunset reflecting off his eyes, making them look look red and yellow. He says, "When a Vaporeon first discovers the ocean, they will tend to vanish, and spend a very long period of time becoming accustomed to life underwater. They become so immersed, they forget for a time that the land exists at all. Normally, you will grow out of it, but it can last for a long while. For instance, my submersion lasted for eighteen years."

I thought about staying underwater for eighteen years, and it made me shiver. But not in a bad way.

Lynn said, "Jasmine, it might be coming time for your own submersion to begin. When it does, I suggest coming to dwell in Crawdaunt Reef. It is the greatest underwater city in the world, and you would have everything your soul would desire, and all the while you could continue to help my old friend with his business."

And I just scampered up to Lynn and I hugged him just like I would always hug Grandpa or Grandma when I was happy to see them. I put my paw around his neck and I put my muzzle under his chin. And I thanked him for everything he did for me.

* * *

And that was the story of how I became a fish. I stayed around the city, and I was very happy during my time here. I helped Brunt once a week take his Keldeo to the reef and bring things to the underwater city, and he paid me by buying me things from the market. One time, he even let me make one of those fake fossil-prints, and he put my name on it. And he set it on the hearth right next to Lynn's.

I didn't see much of Lynn anymore, but I still found him on the beach a few times a year and I got to talk with him. I wanted to talk with him even more, but I could never seem to find him when I wanted. But I guess he was just happy swimming wherever he wanted all the time.

As for me… I just spent a whole week dictating this story to Brunt. I know I didn't have to, but I wanted to have my story written down somewhere so I wouldn't forget it when the comet comes. I wonder where that comet is, anyway. The astronomers don't know anything about it, and I've already been living here for six years.

But I feel something inside me. I want to submerge. It was just like Lynn said. I really just want to go underneath the ocean and live there for a very long time. And I think I'm going to start tomorrow. I can't wait any longer. It's just so exciting thinking of living in the reef. So I'm getting this story down in paper, because I don't know what's going to happen to me now. At this time tomorrow I might just be a jet of water flying around in the coral without a care in the world.

I miss my family, of course. I dream about them sometimes. But Grandpa always said there was a whole world out beyond the forest that we would see one day. I got to see the ocean, and I think I would miss it too if it were taken away. I'm a very happy fish. So I guess my evolution was good. My change was for the better. I just wonder if the rest of my brothers and sisters are doing alright.

This is my goodbye to the world of the surface. I was raised on the surface, but now there's somewhere else I belong. Somewhere bigger. After all this time, that's still the only thing I know about the ocean: that it's big, and I've barely seen any of it. And when I die, it'll still be the same way. But at least I can say I was there, and that I was a part of it.


End file.
